Riding the Crime Wave

I'm only one man. Don't gotta shot against them. The will ship all unite, everybody stopped the friction. Stop dropping listen. I'm on a mission. Can't take the heat. Get out my mama's kitchen. I said, you can't take the heat, get out my mom's kitchen. Yeah yeah, what up y'all. My name's Dope Knife Lingo Franca And we are waiting on reparations to this day, to this day, to this day. How you doing, Mac, I'm good. I'm good. I had a very sloppy fourth July weekend, but you know, I'm healthy,

I'm alive. Everything's intact as it were Oh snap. I worked on a bunch of new music stuff over the weekend too. That was fun, um surprisingly, putting together this show every week and trying to make an album. It's uh, it's hard, it's hard. How are you doing? How's how are you? A week removed from your first performance of I'm in markedly less pain than I was the night of uh whatever that was? Yeah? Up, Yes, I came home and I was in an unspeakable pain, um from

just jumping around stomping and flailing and ship. But I got in the pool, went over my friend's pool yesterday and floated and definitely was a far more therapeutic than I had expected. I was like, my doctor recommended not getting the pool, like that must be some kind of placebo like duh, m you you're you know you have a headache, drink more water, you know that kind of ship like thanks bro. But no, I actually got in the pool and it felt like it was zero fourth

of July where the July was. I um actually had a baby shower and so I had a fucking shipped out of people over my house. It was very it's very overwhelming. I'm still getting used to that. Um. But that was good, didn't really blow up anything. I'm not super into that ship for myself particularly, you know, I've never really been like that celebrity celebratory. Is that the

word of Fourth of July? It's always kind of you know, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving just personally have always been kind of holidays that are about family and friends, but not necessarily about what they're meant for to me anyway, take the excuse to get together with family. But I don't want to talk about freedom like I mean, you know, I think of our Pilgrims influenced. Like I remember Iced Tea when I was a kid and they used to

listen to him. He always used to like mention that in a couple of albums you'd be like, yeah, man, bullshit as Thanksgiving, we was in chains back then, that ship, you know exactly. But um yeah, let's get into it. We got a pretty dope stacked show for you today. We are going to be talking about a little theme that has been recurring lately on the show in the last few episodes, which has been in the increase in

violent crime and shooting that's been crime wave. Yeah, I mean the violent crime or the murder thing at least

you know it's real, it's in the data. But like one thing we know for certain is that the right wing in this country is definitely going to start using that whole spectra of mura I just said, crime wave and that whole narrative, so they can like use that as part of their strategy for the mid terms, whether and even not just the midterms, but like local elections that are going on now, might be going on in town that you're in right now, listen to the show.

So it's like important that we monitor these things and prepare ourselves because who knows where they're gonna take it. You know, the Democratic Democrats there, you know they're gonna go with the wind on it. So if the Republicans start, you know, effectively tagging them with that whole soft on crime narrative, we know where this where they can go. It happened in the nineties, and we've got the fucking

dude who did it as president right now. So the way I see it, if the messaging is good enough to scare enough people that Republicans start taking office again, and they're doing it all on the campaign of crime is getting out of control, we need more cops. We need cops to have even longer relation. They need to be able to do more things and stopping first nationwide all that search ship. I personally don't have any evidence

that suggests the Democrats wouldn't eventually go with that. It's just further shifting that Overton window of everything being like some fucking right wing nightmare, you know. So I think

it's something important to address, Yeah, for sure. So we're talking about some crime statistics from around the country, our thoughts on like why this is happening, as well as a very variety of perspectives of those you know, with various political agendas as well, and how they're kind of spending the data towards their personal ends, um along the way.

So yeah, in the music discussion, we're gonna dig into some songs where m c s paint narratives and portraits to maybe you know, get into the mindset of how some of these violent situations happened in the first place. And all right, we'll get to all that after the jump.

All right, so, you know, just a little recap because we have been mentioning it in some episodes before, but like, how has this recent I guess surge in some of this violent crime effected you and and where you're at I mean I um, I would say the uptick in violent crime as as as a commissioner I was hit home for me in a number of ways, both in terms of just interpersonally one on one with constituents, hearing some of the stories they've told and how that's impacted

me emotionally, and then like in terms of community organizing. So on the one side, it's been really hard for me. And you know, particularly when we saw our big space of shootings back maybe a month and month and a half ago, getting calls every day from mothers who were trying to relocate their children because their house that got shot at the night before, talking to families of folks

who had not survived violent exchanges of gunfire. Um, and these kids being very young and sort of just like UM hearing I guess like one of the most impactful things is hearing all the positive things as you see in the newspaper, like oh, you know, you know thug had like you know, previous gun chartists, whatever kind of bullshit has drawn straight from the police report, and we

know the police lie. We know the police want to tell the full story and so getting to hear from these families about how like all the potential of these young men had and like what they meant to their communities, etcetera. Like it on top of just like you know, it's my job to like do constituent services, but like it's sucking hard sometimes. And then I mean, particularly we've got

the violent crime in the community. But what's really unaccounted for and on the day that we're gonna talk about today as well as just um and in the national rhetoric around this quote unquote carme wave is the amount of like police violence and whether or not it has gone up or down um during this time has a different kind of harm For people who take on very tough on crime stands, you know, siting community violence, they're also leaving out like this other form of state violence

that then just perpetuates cycles of harm. Like you've got people out here rob and stealing the salton people, and then you got the police out here robbing people people.

That's one of the things that you know, has me particularly concern because it's like every every point within the last like sixty years that we've had these sort of like national upticks in crime or whatever, it has resulted in police getting their leash, you know what I mean, getting a longer a longer leash to to do their ship. It's stuff that it's like, you know, policies that were set in place back in like the sixties and eighties

and stuff like that. We're still like dealing with the effects of that stuff now, you know what I mean. So it's like we don't want to have like another you know round of that sort of stuff being institutionalized and ingrained. Yeah, but I brought up a rise in police violence, which I don't have any tats. I don't know where we are at with regards to whether we are seeing a decline or an increase or a stagnation.

But I mean, honestly, the thing that impact me the most is when that man was killed by the cops,

like around the corner from my house. I also probably about a month and a half ago, um, because like it stays with me to this day thinking about, like I found his Facebook be the man that lost his life, Like two days before this happened, he was posting on Facebook, like you know, can somebody cash at me in dollar so I can go to the gas station and like get some chips, like he was so desperate, like you know,

no likes, no comments or anything. And then you see like in this is earlier, like as as you get closer to when the ship went down, his sense of aggravation that like nobody had his back, that he couldn't get ahead in this world, that he couldn't provide for his family. And then he then then there's a point where like he posted a video where like it's kind

of clear he's snapped. And it stays with me, man that like Nigga just as just need wanted a dollar from somebody, reached out to the internet and not and not a soul had his bag. And when we get later into um and so eventually, yeah, like he was rolling around the streets of the shotgun and tried to rob the pool from the corner from my house, ended

up getting shot at police. Um. But yeah, when we get into preventative solutions and prevention and solutions later, we'll take a little bit more into the linkage between that economic pecurity and the emotional state. Then people get in and how it ends up with sad things like these people people in our communities killing each other or people were getting killed by the cops. Well, it's good that you brought up, you know, checking the sources of some

of these numbers in statistics. So, American City saw thirty three increase in homicides last year. And according to a report produced by the Major Cities Chief Association, which is this organization that's comprised of police executives representing the largest cities in the United States and Canada. According to them, sixty three of the sixty six largest police jurisdictions saw increases in at least one category of violent crime, in

which included homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault. Now this is contested because like what's happening with with homicides isn't necessarily part of the quote unquote crime wave. It's actually many crimes from larceny to robbery to rape have all dropped during that They all dropped during the pandemic, and they've continued to fall during the first you know, a few months.

Also really important contextualize this in the in the historical lens of the last forty or fifty years, because crime is down from the nineties still um and so we are seeing like we are seeing an uptick in some

forms of violent crime. Relative to like two thousand and nineteen. UM. But and it seems like, you know, because we've all been in these little boxes for a year and a half, Like it's shocking when it goes up a little bit and like you're hearing about a lot of shootings in the community, but news cycle and like how you know, you just you see more stuff now you see remember what it was like in the nineties, Like you kind of like either you get nostalgic about it and like

kind of look at it from that lens, or just like it's hard to like recall how bad it used to be. I mean for me, I was barely even alive back then. Um, And so I've grown like during the course of my life, crime has just fallen and fallen and fallen in most major cities u um, the entire time I've been alive. And so it's like, um, I think it's hard for people to remember how far

we have come with regards to violent crime. UM, because it's so shocking when it does slightly uptick as it has in this like transition out of the pandemic time. Well a lot of it is messaging too, That's what

you know. I was barely alive back then too, But I was a kid, you know, I mean like a little kid, and it's like from what I remember comparing it to now, is it was just the messaging of it was a lot more deliberate back then, and now, whether it's deliberate or not, it's just more ubiquitous now, you know, like back then in order to like be ginned up and scared about, like, oh, crime is increasing,

crime is increasing. It's like you have to be watching the news, you know, and it's like now you've got Facebook, you've got um Twitter, you've got Instagram, and it's like you you know, if you just like scroll in it or you look at the trending topic, is like depending on what city you're in, like stuff is gonna be trending. Local news stories are gonna be trending. And it's just like a saturation of it that if you spend even a few minutes looking at it, you're like, oh, man,

ship is out of control. There's just like there's just like people are going crazy left and right. It's like, you know, when it's really just isolated stories, but you're getting bombarded with all these different all this you know, different media and messaging that you kind of go along with the flows, like, oh, man, I guess we have

a crime wave like that. I mean, so I guess the broader category of violent crime has only really increased about three percent this year according to preliminary data from the FBI on a large subset of cities, But it's homicides in particular that have increased as other crimes. Foll. I think with this the fact that like, yeah, it seems like things are going crazy because like one homicide is enough, Like there's no acceptable number of people to

lose their lives ever. Um. And so if you hear about you know, six, it might be less than you had heard about growing up. But I mean, from my perspective, it's like that's six families at six schools that lost the student, the six churches that lost you know, a member, etcetera.

It's a whole bunch of lives ruined. Yeah. And and then beyond that, beyond like the very real impact of like yo, I'm not I'm not downplaying this because homicide is incredibly um, it's just incredibly painful for a community

to experience. Um. Also the fact that it gets clicks when things like people are scared so when they hear of always homicides like this, stay glued to their TV and not to see their ducal acts, commercial or whatever because they're like fucking freaked out that it seems like the crime surgy. So I wanted to run this by you.

It's something that I came across in CNN, and it just I just wanted to get what your thoughts were about it, all right, So in this article in CNN, they were saying, experts point to a perfect storm of factors economic collapse, social anxiety from the pandemic, d policing in major cities after protests that called for the abolition of police departments, shift in police shifts and police resources from neighborhoods to downtown areas because of those protests, and

the release of criminal defendants pre trial or before sentences were completed to reduce the risk of COVID spread in jail. All may have contributed to a spike in homicides. Now, says, COVID has seemed to exacerbate everything. Officers sometime had to quarantine because of exposure to cases in their ranks, reducing

the number of officers available in patrol. The reason that I wanted to ask you about your thoughts of that is like as an abolitionist, like what do you say to like something like that, say to what part specifically? So specifically the you know, the rationale that officers having to quarantine during COVID, so they're having to reduce the number of officers out their fault because these dumb asses

don't wear any fucking masks anywhere they go. No, no, no. But I was saying, like them saying that contributed to an increase of crime. I mean I don't believe. I don't believe police prevent crime, and so I don't believe that excuse. Um they I mean, it might have affected their response rates with regards to following up after crimes have already occurred, because that's all they fucking do. Um, But I don't think that. I don't buy. I don't buy that excuse because I think it's it's propaganda to

get some more money. That's what they want you to think. The same thing with the whole the policing arguments, like well, we were all demoralized and you all didn't want the cops around, so we you know, we pulled up, you know, we like you know, rolled up our carpet and went home, took our ball, went home, and that caused an increasing crime.

It has study done in Kansas City. I can't remember quite when it was pretty old, and you know, I don't know if it had been duplicated empirically so the findings of it could be considered pulmonary, but they had um They did an experiment to see the effects of police visibility on crime rates and three different zones in the city. It's an extra cops to one zone, they kept another zone the same, and then they sent out

less cops to a third zone. And they found no substantive difference in the reported rates of victimization, crime rates, um increase in traffic fatalities anything like literally not like it did not impact at all the degree to which crime was happening or people were being victimized in these

three different areas of the city of Kansas. I don't know why people have this like imagination that should have fucking gangs in New York and like, you know what I mean, there's like roaming street gangs for us to need like patrolmen just all all over the place, you

know what I'm saying. It's like, what are they really preventing Are they really preventing anybody from doing anything illegal that they're going to do anyway you wait for the cop car to go buy yeah, or you know, or just do it blunt, like straight up in their face because they ain't scared of them or like whatever. Um and in its acts of like oh you need fear.

Let's talk about how all we far we have fallen if the we believe the only way we can get people to not do bad things is scare them with punishment, like that's I think it's a scess, really sassinated affairs because a lot of people who don't do crimes because they don't hurt other people and as an ethos that we are failing through preventative means to like fully seed in the culture. I don't think it's and I don't think it's impermeable. I don't think's immutable. I don't think

it's like, oh, we can't change it. We have to rely on police because people don't care about each other. It's just like a failure to like believe that people aren't naturally like that and it's something socialized into them that can be socialized out in a generation or so if we were just like focused on having that as a component of education, etcetera. Anyway I'm going off are like, yeah, I mean any sort of pretty much anything cops have

to say about white crimes going up. I don't care because they're allowing to get more money and I don't care about them. So so Um. In Chicago, homicides are up thirty three in the first three months of the year compared to while shootings are up nearly in the

same period year over year. In New York City, the NYPD DADAS shows murders jumped by nearly fourteen percent through March, the latest number of the department is made public, while shootings were up nearly fifty Again, those are all yeah, police numbers also year over year numbers, so compared to when everyone was inside and not like taking the against

the cloud or whatever. Yes, homicides are up, but let's look at those numbers from let's say, right, um, and so yeah, it's shocking because like life is going back

to normal. Um and but like the bottom has fallen out of our economy and the social fabric of our communities, and so people are you're fucking they're getting out back in the streets and then they're killing each other dubb bit like it's unfortunate, but like what y'all thing is gonna happen if niggas be inside for a whole year and a half, lost their job, have to stay at home with their kids because the kids are aline school.

They ain't got no you know, I ain't got no money, so they like, you know, economic that economic exactly talking about the funk house, you think gonna happen. But still it's not as quite quite as bad as we may have seen thirty or four years ago. Um Dida also show that there's the rising homicides likely translated into an additional fourth house, and our five thousand people killed across

the country compare with the year before. According to early estimates, cities that have never seen decreases in gun violence to match the overall national trend were hit especially hard to places like Philadelphia and St. Louis were clearmed returned close to the historic ties for the number of people killed in a single year, according to the Philadelphia inquir and the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Early data suggests that the

homicides increase isn't necessarily happening at random. But that the additional violence is clustered in disadvantaged neighborhoods of color, that we're already struggling with higher gun rates of violence before the pandemic even happened. So that's according to UH criminologist Richard Rosenfeld, who has done who's authored multiple national reports

on crime and violent trends. So have you your you know, obviously we talked about some of those personal UH instances, but just overall, like, have you noticed like or or heard of any sort of UH national carry through and have that affecting Georgia. Honestly, what I'm seeing is a kid to what we see, Like we see a spiking crime every summer, and be it kids are out of school and acting up in the streets more. There's more parties in the summertime, and so people get intoxicated it

and then emotions get high. Um or it's just a fucking weather. It's hard to know, but it feels like every single summer we see a spike and shootings. Um And so I am seeing these patterns in my district. But I am also able to put them somewhat more into like a recent historical perspective of like a cycle that we free we continue to experience because we keep doing the same thing over and never again expecting different

results with regards to crime prevention. UM. So, the the spike that I feel like we are seeing, like I feel like I've seen this before, Like I feel like we're, oh, we're back here now. Definitely I've seen an increase, but it's like, except for last summer, I mean two thousand, eighteen seventeen, I feel like I feel like it's summer has always felt like this when it comes to violent crime in the districts. Well as we're gonna get into in a second, um, some of this might you know,

definitely is going to have a relationship to guns. You know, it's a Erica, so everything kind of comes down to guns. A preprint study from researchers at the University of California, Davis, which has not yet been peer reviewed, just so that you know, UM suggested a spike in gun purchases during the early months of the pandemic was associated with with the nearly eight percent increasing gun violence from March through May, or about seven seventy additional fatal and non fatal shooting

injuries nationwide. The Researchers found that states that had lower levels of violent crime pre COVID saw a strong connection between additional gun purchases and more gun violence. And that is from the Guardian. So places that didn't have long guns before, some people wouldn't buy guns, and then exactly

if everyone has guns. And community groups say that the pandemic forced them to shutter prevention programs and created huge challenges for the work of violence interrupters, who rely on close relationships and in person interventions with people at risk

of shootings are being shot. Yeah, so even in the preventative measures that at places it started to you know, expand on or see you know seed and then let a later grow um or even things that aren't explicitly crime preventative but like do help strengthen the social fabric

of the neighborhood. Stuff like a lot of our tutoring programs, UM, churches, UM, different kinds of leatra services, activities for the young folks, like without those around, like people isolated and they go a little stir crazy and start making decisions and and then yeah, I mean, but even this work of like these inner personal relationships, these folks working within like violence interruption cultivate like you know, social distancing mass everything all

of that ship fell apart. So what did you think was gonna happen? I don't want to repeat myself because I feel like I've said this the last two episodes, but I just don't I don't even understand how even like the most bad faith person or right wing but whatever, I don't even know how understand how you can even be like genuinely susceptible to like not understanding what's going on. You know, I mean, we all lived through the pandemic, you know what I'm saying, Like how many people do

we know? Or if you're not one of them who lost the job, you know what I'm saying, So we like all know how hard this last year was. And it's like I'm I personally, I don't like I don't like making excuses for people who kill people, you know what I mean. It's like there's never a reason to take a life life like all that ship. But at the same time, it's like, like you said, what do you expect is going to happen? Like billions of people went out of work, everyone was inside, everyone was nervous.

There was a point in time when we didn't know if this ship was about to be fucking outbreak times too, you know what I'm saying. Then then like the turmoil over in the summer happened. It's just like all of it to me seems like you know, one plus one equals too. I mean, like, I mean, we did a bunch of there were a bunch of like kumbaya, we're all of this together as fucking like celebrity or I don't know what, you know what I mean, like there are sounds of like, oh, you know, we all have

finished pandemic. We know it's like like for some people, a lot bed for a bunch of rich conservatives that are clutching their pearls about roving gangs of blm an tifa, you know, riding through their Bagonians in the freyard um. They don't. They didn't live in the same world we did for the pandemic in terms of like seeing like losing jobs, losing income, seeing friends lose income, seeing friends get sick and not be able for to go to the hospital like um get seeing friends and family, you know,

become homeless because they couldn't afford childcare. There's nowhere to send their kids and their kids doing online school, so they had like quit their jobs, and then you know, they're having money they if they couldn't pay rent and they could get the house. Like also all this kind of christ stuff. There's tons of people who did not

see any of that. M who and most of them are But I would say a lot of people who are making a lot of the decisions for our country have no proximity to the reality of the pandemic for low income people whatsoever. Um, They're so yeah, it does not occur to them. It's like, Oh, it wasn't that bad. We always worked from home, right, It's like, uh, non niggasm. People was working in public and like didn't have any

health insurance and are dead now. And that is just because you know, like should just starting to open back up. Doesn't mean that people aren't going to be feeling the effects from everything that you know, we just went through for years to come, you know what I'm saying. Yeah.

Some police officials and their allies have asserted that last summer's big, volatile protests against police violence diverted police resources and attention away from their normal patrols, and they have also suggested that demoralized angry police officers might be less proactive or effective in dealing with violent crimes. I think

called bullshit. UM and Jeff Asher, a crime analyst who writes extensively about homicide trends, um An examined sixty cities and found no correlation between the number of Black Lives Matter protests in the size of the city's homicide increase. UM. I've also read UM that there's that you know, crime has increased in gop led cities as well as democrat led cities, small towns as well as big cities. Places

was very huge protests, Places with no protest movement whatsoever. UM. Places where they defunded the police, you know, the very few that did love to be clear. UM, places where they increased with this budget. So like none of these you know, if people want to say, oh, they want to blame it on BLM, like what about places that

didn't have that movement happened? Yeah, like okay, bro um and so Asher explained, well, he warned that any policing focused explanation for the homicide increase needed to also explain why the change would have only affected serious and deadly violence.

But I think it's a good point It's like, why if it has to do with policing and the effectiveness of like proactive patrols, etcetera, why is it only only violent crime and no other kind of crime that is being an impacted by this There there isn't a clear explanation for them. Yeah, he said, most crime is down, including most felonies serious crime. If deep, if the deep policing argument is correct, why did it only affect the uptick and violence and that other street crimes. Yeah, it

doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Bron Well, let's get into sort of the way that uh or partisan corporate oligarchy is fucking spending the ship to break in fundraising dollars in So we've got GOP operatives in Washington's who see this whole debate with the rising crime ship is like, you know, a potent centerpiece of how they're going to start running their campaigns for Senate next

year in the mid term elections. It motivates the base party voters, as evidenced by the primary fight in Mississippi's fourth district where Mike Easel, How you say that, who's a Golf Coast sheriff is centering his primary challenge against his incumbent, REPS Stephen Palazzo, on defund the police or his opposition to it. And he's doing this even though the nigga he's running against shares the same sentiment is

the Mississippi. I love the ship. It cracks me up when like the Republicans had to be like Democrats wanted to fund the police. I'm like, I fucking wish brother ay, even unlessil neither like y'all, y'all all on the same team. Don't even try to play with me about it. So this guy as well, he was saying, in some districts, we focus on to fund the police and the broader

cultural fight. He didn't say the Republican operatives, But in many suburban districts, we took to fund the police and turned it into a public safety issue about whether there should be increase or discrease and police in your neighborhoods and what public safety officials do to keep people safe. In another state, Iowa, Republican Governor Kim Reynolds had promised additional checks on police conduct after the whole George flight.

Think you remember there was a point in time when the Republicans were pretending that it was like, oh, yeah, you know, George Floyd dying is bad and cops maybe aren't perfect, but they've all there was this brief glimmering moment where they yeah, they got so fucking jawed jaw jack you know there, So um, she didn't. She did say all that ship and paid that whole lip service during that whole thing. But now she plans on making it harder to sue police on the job. It's part

of her re election strategy. And just like the further Republican regression to the mean and then Biden of course rejected the framing of the defunded police movement during for the White House, calling for additional resources for st in local law enforcement. It's been really funny to me to see like my boomer parents that like were very down with the authorizing. My dad said some crazy ship like when they burned on the windows. He was like, well, we burned, we built this country. Uh so what if

we burned to the ground. I was like, what, I have never heard you say something like that before. What, Oh my god, damn, what the fuck? So like, but now like h like sharing memes about oh past the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, like not realizing it gives like was seven hunty million more dollars to the police to specifically to so that they can investigate themselves when they kill us, so not to prevent them from killing us, just like, oh, to have more money to

find that get to the bottom of it. Like we know what happens when they get to the bottom of it if I get protect each other. Uh. And I'm saying that they did nothing wrong, so anyway, Um, it's just it's just like correct family does. It's just yeah, exactly, Um, but yeah, the lack of clarity about where the White House stands on policing was side is the cost for the just supporting results in several congressional races or I guess there would be right House at the time during

presidential election and theocratic democratic activist groups. You're trying to figure out how best to respond, if at all, to the Republican line of attacked. I just think that uh, I mean one infirm it looks make you like a fucking stupid baby, like, oh, no, I want to give the cops more money. Opposite of what he said. It's just like, why are you letting them run the debate for pure on a pure reactionaries man on a purely

political end of it. It's like, why are you drawing attention to Like I'm just this is just you know, purely like thinking like political nuts and bolts. It's like you can't control what activists say, you know what I mean. So it's like, I don't even know. It's like the fact that they're so worried about it and they want to like squirm themselves and twist themselves and pretzels over something that they know that they don't agree with. You

know what I'm saying, I don't. I don't even It just seems like you're you're playing into their hands to begin with, you know what I'm saying. And I mean, I don't know if this is effective politicking or not, but I just feel like morally it makes the most sense. And this is an analogy. Um, I guess I would say, got a friend who's running from mayor and like a moderate size city in North Georgia, and um, people are

trying and he's the unity Democrat. People trying to like put him in the corner because it's more of a rural red leaning area about CRT we're like, oh, what do you think about the RT? Like he's running to be mayor. He's not running to be your school principal or your superintendent or teacher gym class. He's going to be mayor. And so I keep telling him over and over again, and people come at you with that stuff.

Pivot back to what the mayor does and what you're really about, and how embarrassing that these like GOP dudes are making it about the culture war when like, literally people can't afford housing, people can't afford food. You know, our environment is our fucking oceans are on fire, Like can we talk about some real ship? And that, honestly is what my advice to Democrats would be, like, Oh, are you trying to defind the police? Like, you know what,

that's a local issue. You know what happens with police departments is a local thing. And it's embarrassing that y'all are trying to like bring it back to this when the reality is people need jobs, we need infrastructure, we need climate action, and y'all are trying to make this about like cultural war slogans. Again, Yeah, I mean, but I just I have like this really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that this ship is working. Well,

I'm sorry Uma. During the election, when like Kenosha went down and Democrats are starting to get a little scared about, oh, this whole Trump law and order message is gonna start sticking, I personally wasn't really sweating it because you know, I mean, I just I saw that that that's what they were doing, but I didn't think it was going to be effective. But now I think, you know, I think the culture war issues are gonna stick a little bit more hartially

due to a lot of factors. But you know, I think there definitely is a good amount of the population that's susceptible to it. Well, we should probably get to this in a future episode sometime soon, with like the Ocean Beyond Fire ship. I don't even think, like I mean, I like I am, I am concerned about it about you know, obviously asked like as an abolitionist, this is like a key framework through which I, like, you know,

sift policy and policy decisions. But like, yo, we also at the same time, like we're all about to like literally burn and die exactly. I don't even know. It is very hot. People are dying in our infrastructure is melting like and so I just remember when it was so when So I guess I say that though, because when people get to be like, oh, what the impact could I have on the mid terms, and I like Cam even I'm just like, none of these people are gonna save us. Holy sh it, Like I almost don't

even give a fuck. But in terms of some of the quote unquote crime wave prevention, what are some effective things that you feel that like, you know, fun the policy and like what are what are some effective things that you think that people can do in their communities themselves to like reduce reduce some of the violence that we are seeing, I mean in Athens particularly, And I think this is I mean, it's it's as exacerbated here, but I'm sure it's true if many countries around there,

around there many cities around the country. Um, we have a we have a working property problem. We got h thirty eight percent poverty rate, but you know, like a threecent unemployment rate, So we got thirty percent of the city who are working full time and still can't make it. To mean, so why wouldn't you go rob somebody of the dash and maybe getting to shoot out or if you get home from your you know your you. You worked all day at school and now you're gonna go

ride the Santation trucks tonight. You get home and you get into a dispute with your wife. Why wouldn't it come to hands when you're stressed out about how you're

gonna feed five kids working eighty hours week. Like, um, I think the issue is just like if people have more economic security, they'd be able, they'd be more liberated to make choices for healthier choices for themselves, be that escaping an abusive relationship because they can afford their own housing, or going back to school just for the hell of it's to find your passion and what you love and enjoy um, or seeking out mental health counseling, or does

any other things that like maybe easier breathe, Like money can't buy happiness, but yeah fuck that, yes yeah I can. But fuck that, yes it can. Um. And so I think the economic stability is a crucial point there. Um. And so through that, like you know, I've been working with this organization. We're trying to provide opportunities for you to help sort of help them grow into productive and healthy adults. You know, just see a path like, oh yeah, it's cool to be into other things and not that

you know, aren't the streets. But also we're trying to get people, you know, young men trained up to get their CDL license so that they can fill in some of these bus driver shortages, etcetera around town and not only take these less of them in wage jobs, but trained up enough of them where they can go in as a bargaining unit from the jump and say, Yo, look, y'all got a shortage of ten drivers, ten of us

apply for this job. We'll we'll all take it. We'll end your driver shortage right now if we get a five thou dollar like salary increase over what y'all are

offering us. So stuff like that ways of like not only giving people that economic empowerment, but like really like super charging it by teaching folks these um these um the value of collective out to bargaining from the jump, Like we don't get you a good job, but also we're gonna bring you in with a squad such that you'll have leverage to get the working conditions and the benefits, etcetera. The trove rely deserve UM. I think that's a fundamental

piece and I could go on and on. I mean, like I think with UM, I mean exercise I do frequently with people who are like, well what about X y Z crime, sort of like asking them, Okay, well, why do you think someone did that? Oh you're scared someone gonna break into your house to a TV? Why would he do that in the first place? And getting out of the roots of like, oh, is he a

drug addict? Does he need treatment? So? Okay, your house wouldn't have got broken into if you if he had gotten drug treatment, or oh he broke into your house because you need money because he can't be his kids. Well, let's address that situation in your house wouldn't even get

broken into, etcetera. I think there's a lot of directions that can go in, but very often I feel that it falls down to economic empowerment, having that the liberty to make choices for yourself, um and and choose healthy ones rather than being caught cycles of of of harmony and community that you're just forced into by nature of not having resources. Well, yo, do you want to listen to some rap songs? Never? I hate rap. Let's get it, let's get it. We'll be right back with the music.

Discussion after the joke. Okay, so we are back. So we're gonna get into some rap songs that provide a little bit of a narrative that kind of gets you into some of these situations that we've been speaking of where, you know what I mean, everyday things are going on and then all of a sudden violence breaks out, and then it's a statistic that we're reading that's part of

some number, you know, in some cities somewhere. So I tried to lean for stuff on the more serious and with me saying that the first song we're gonna listen to is a song big Els Casualties of a Dice Game. Now, for some of you who have heard Casualties of the Dice Game, you'll know that at the second half of it, it kind of gets pretty crazy and turns into a movie.

It is not like the realistic scenario that which I'm describing, But the first half of it very much is like, you know, some like a real narrative that very much feels like, oh man, this could be the whole story for something that you just see as a news headline, you know what I mean. So let's check out this is Big l casualty of a dice game and why not.

Quick's the story of a character going to a dice game and he's armed because everybody's they're going to have lots of money on them, and he's going to have lots of money on him too, and you never know what could happen. He goes, he starts winning the game, and then on his way home, he's being followed by the dudes who he won the money from and a

shootout occurs, leaving everybody injured, dead or whatever. Yeah, innocuous, just like someone saw an opportunity to get some quick cash through you know, probably an I legal dice game happening on the corner. And then someone's like, yo, that my fund just left some ship. Um, let's let's get him. Let's get that money word. And if you listen to the rest of the song, like I was saying, Big l gets real nuts with it, and it becomes kind

of like a fantasy crime story at that point. But that opening part of it, it definitely struck me as something that was rooted in Oh man, that sounds like a real situation. For the next joint, we have a song by Mers called Walk Like a Man let's check out a little bit of this drop top stop complete what I've seen with construct reality. When if two girls scream and so, yeah, I mean like a very simple you know, they're paying a really vivid portrait of a

very simple altercation and misunderstanding. It seems escalating and the violence when it's really and it's really easy to get that form when everybody got guns. So in the story, he's talking about him and his friend on the strip. They see some girls that they go in holler at, and they didn't see that there was a guy in the car. So when they went and knocked on the door, the dude thought that they were trying to rob him and he got out. Altercation occurred and the rapper, the

rapper's friend ended up getting killed. So you know, just like you said, everybody's everybody's arms. So something that's a misunderstanding that at worst could have could have been a fight, you know what I mean, it could have been a fistfight or some ship. Yeah, ends with some idea. Now this next track, I struggled with including it solely just because you know, I feel like we've been having a lot of NAS songs. I mean, yeah, I hang, I never.

I just I just you know, we are not paid by NAS, but damn it, the man writes some good songs. We're gonna check out this track that I think should probably be more popular of something in his catalog than it is. But it is the track off of his Stillmatic album I think that was back in two thousand one, and it is the song rewind. Let's check that out real quick. Back with the starts at the end and the bullet goes back in the gun, the bullet holes close in his chest up with nick, and now he's

back to square one, screaming shoot don't please. Yeah, like the unique the unique thing about the song is that he tells the story in reverse, but it's it's just that was that's probably like the standout aspect of the song, but in terms of the overall stories telling, it's just a simple story of you know, some some gangster guys having a night that turns into somebody seeing a person that's a target and then they go after him. Yeah. I was actually never understood that that song was all

going backward. I was like, I was like, no, it's just being fucking wild, just like just being wild with it, Like I gotta say that album is definitely not my favorite album, but that song is one of his best songs. I think that ship needs to get more props than it does. So, ladies and gentlemen, that is it for the week. That's it. That's it. Stay safe, love one another, build community, networks of care so we can just like just keep ourselves safe. It's it's wild out here. It's

wild out here between stay violence and violence and intracommunal violence. Man. I mean, it's hard times as we recover from the economic fallouts of the year that has been. But if we watch each other's back, support each other, and we can get out of this together. And we're gonna help you out by giving you some dope rhymes. Hey, Joel, why don't you drop a drop a beat for us? Pretty please? I'm walking with a d bost s big ego. Now give me all you see those please bags empty?

I don't really see no cheese. These niggas wrapped like they're working with the gop is dope. Let me give you nothing. I am a little bit of front. And we was at a house body the last of six or something. One guns, everybody sticks and busting we out the pandemic. Everybody rips and touch and it's disgusted it. Instead of going giving people healthcare, they just gave us

a bunch of shots. Now we're watching shell slid. Hell yeah, now you say he's really in the pitch hundred pound dudes talking about they really with the ships on the knife. I don't need a Macmillie with the clip. I just soli podcast activity when I spit, and I must admit I'm ice trade. But I gotta say bucks to six don't watching them miss NBC and looking at the crime rates cops and from a nothing just telling me it's

crime wave higher than the sky scrape. How many people got today between the COVID and the kids up to another and I right, but it's really popping off like the nine page. It doesn't really help the networtive the billions that were spending jailer kids and someone Pepper did instead of giving it to their parents and school. So unless everyone on some temprity give them jobs making twenty dollars an hour, because the safety some place, it's always

economically in power. Watching with them like a week bunch of flowers, like a flower. It's a policy decision. The options always out. We are waiting on reparations next time see UH. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. M HM.